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Thursday, June 24, 2010

Fantastic!

More than a few folks have asked recently, so I figured I'd indulge...

I've been at Valve and in the Seattle area for almost 8 months now. Life right now is glorious. The Good Lord has been very kind to me and has seen me through some pretty turbulent times over the last 10 years, but now I am blessed beyond my imagination in every area of my life. I didn't expect it, I don't deserve it, but I am thankful and I give Him the credit for it. :) Valve is a great place to work. My work is interesting every day and I enjoy the projects and the people I work with. It's challenging, fun and engaging. I'm surrounded by amazing talent and brains, people who impress, motivate and inspire me. The Pacific Northwest is flat out gorgeous country. The scenery when I drive to work is at times nothing short of breathtaking. The town we live in is great. We've found a really good church 4 blocks from our house. Our neighbors are darling people who are becoming good friends. The schools are really good and my family is happy. And again, it's not because I'm special or great or good. God is. It's all very humbling because I have some dear friends who are in some dark valleys now. I've been there and I know it may seem impossible to imagine it, but the sun does shine again. Just hang on, keep being faithful. And for those of you who don't like it when I express my faith, well... I dunno what to say. I am who I am, take me for what I am.

And so the comments come, as reliably as the sunrise, which incidentally is a blessing that rises on both those who believe and those who don't. So no, I'm not special. If you read the post I think you'd note that I explicitly stated that I am not.

@Andres:Thanks- glad you like my blog. :) But I don't think I'll take your friendly advice, though. Why else have a blog if I can't say what I want? Kinda defeats the purpose, don't you think? I'm not forcing anybody to read or convert or agree. I'm just saying what's on my heart & mind. That's blogging. It's a one way expression with no strings or conditions- you can accept what I say or reject it at your own discretion- and this applies whether I'm talking about my faith or my opinions on the latest animated film. Take it or leave it. You don't have to agree with it. But to tell me not to say it on my own blog? That doesn't make any sense. Why not just dismiss it and move on? People are funny. heh

Funny how folks come to your blog where you dole out lots of great free information, advice, and help and proceed to criticize you for your beliefs.

One of the things that disappoints me most about our industry is how everyone talks about keeping an open mind, not judging others, etc., yet the very second someone thanks God for the life they've been given, they suddenly become close-minded and judgmental.

Thank you Keith for sharing your blessings. It is a real encouragement to see God working in your life and for you to acknowledge it =) It really gives me such joy to know that God is always good to his children =D Even through times of hardships and suffering!

It's great to hear you and your family are at such a bright spot in your lives Keith :) If I can ever get over my brief but utterly terrible experience of working at in a game studio Valve is about the only game company on earth I'd want to work at.

Oh and ignore the hypocrits, there the same people that turn around and expect everyone else to bend over and affirm their point of view. As a Christian I've learned to respect the fact that everyone has a point-of-view or a faith, I may not agree with their reasoning but I'll respect their right to have and express it.

that's beautiful man. So glad you're liking it out here. I found myself landing here about 15 years ago and I can't think of a better place to be. A surfing pioneer, Tom Blake, once wrote "God is Nature" and the PNW is not short on nature. From mountains to ocean, desert to nude cyclists at Solstice parade in Fremont. Peace.

Yeah man!!! I am always so stoked when life is so rich and rewarding, and its good to celebrate the good times. Also, I know for a fact you do not push your beliefs down peoples throat, so its such a pity when you finally speak out, and people start bitching! Get a life people. I am not a Christian, but I am a friend of Keith's and I am glad God is blessing him. And i'm sure we all hope the the folks that are not in such a fortunate position, do get some reward out of life too, its not selfishness, grow up!!! And realise that thankfulness and possitivity are contagious, and pass religious boundries.

Keith, thank you for your post. I'm a man of Faith, and it's wonderful to hear we are brothers in Christ. I just landed my first job at a Studio, animating, 6 months ago, and I feel so blessed... however, I'm fighting to get out of this internship. It's been more than a struggle to get by to say the least, and all I've had is my faith, and to hear you express yours is a blessing. I admire your work and your mindset. Again, thank you.

Keith. Great words of truth and encouragement. I too praise God for my blessing of a job. I enjoy your blog and appreciate all the wonderful information you put forth. Thanks for letting me know that there ARE others in the industry who follow Christ.

I don't criticize you for your beliefs; all religious beliefs are insulting to reason - and as insane as telling people Frosty the snowman is real.This is just another way to show that we are still in the middle ages - it is not until all religious beliefs have disappeared that we can really evolve.I don't care if you are Jewish, Christian, Buddhist or Muslim - they all make me roll my eyes into my skull.Here's to hoping that one day you'll wake up, and your beliefs will have as much quality as your blog."We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."~ H. L Mencken

That is a truly ignorant statement. Your opinion on a subject does not make it fact as you appear to think. Also, if theres any reason "we are still in the middle ages" it is because of people who are unable to respect the beliefs of others and who think that just because they believe something that everyone else MUST believe it as well. This world would be quite boring if every man, women, and child all had the exact same opinion on every subject.

No but seriously, Keith, I've lurked your website for years and have a great amount of respect for you, your work, and your charitable nature. I only hope someday you'll come to your senses about this god delusion. It makes life so much better. Truly. I can speak with confidence seeing how I used to be a very devout christian.

I only hope all of these comments do not serve to solidify your stance on religion, but cause you to honestly question whether or not god/hell/angels/faeries exist. There's a reason your comments draw so much attention, because it baffles many of us that a seemingly put-together, logical, intelligent gentleman like yourself would allow himself to be so fooled.

This world would be quite boring if every man, women, and child all had the exact same opinion on every subject.It's not about opinions - there's no question as to the existence of a deity - there is no deity, and hence there can't be an opinion. You can either be right or wrong, and if you believe in a deity, you are deluding yourself and your belief is laughable and insulting to reason.There are no "opinions" over facts.Your inability to see the stupidity in religion and deities betrays you as an unevolved being.

"because it baffles many of us that a seemingly put-together, logical, intelligent gentleman like yourself...."

In that case wouldn't it be fair to also say that because Keith is a seemingly put-together, logical, intelligent gentleman that the conclusions he's reached are worth at least considering because they are not the ravings of a mad man?

"In that case wouldn't it be fair to also say that because Keith is a seemingly put-together, logical, intelligent gentleman that the conclusions he's reached are worth at least considering because they are not the ravings of a mad man?"

There's lots of deluded religious people who are otherwise good at what they do. Just because you are good at something doesn't mean you will be good at something else. Obvious, isn't it?

"Since no one can exhaustively examine every place in the universe, the reply goes, no one can conclusively establish the non-existence of anything."

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

Well Andres, the way you've so thoughtfully, lovingly and considerately attacked and insulted Keith and everyone else on the planet who believes in a higher power has convinced me that you must be right. How could i have even thought such a thing in the face of such contempt?

Well Andres, the way you've so thoughtfully, lovingly and considerately attacked and insulted Keith and everyone else on the planet who believes in a higher power has convinced me that you must be right. How could i have even thought such a thing in the face of such contempt?"

Dear Josh:

Interesting that you choose to attack me instead of my arguments - the flying spaghetti monster must be protecting my logic... or is it Russell's teapot? Well, one of them is.

In any case, believers go through life insulting themselves and others. I have absolutely no respect for delusions - and when you actively engage in political activities based on them, you become dangerous.

Evolved humans "respect" your delusions as much as a crazy person's belief that he or she is Napoleon. Ridiculous.

I was willing to let this play out, but it's getting snippy and not a little bit mean spirited, pretty much as I figured it would.

Andres:I'm not going to argue with you here. You think I'm a fool and you hold me in contempt. That's fine. You've made yourself clear. When I wrote the post I asked people to not make a big deal out of this. Why? Because I believe that blog comments are a very poor format for well reasoned, civilized debate of hotly contested subjects. Sadly, I've been proven correct. You have your issues with those who hold faith based world views, but this is not the forum for you to deal with them. I am not interested in turning this blog or its comment section into a moshpit over such things. Please troll elsewhere.

As for the rest of you (on both sides), now is a good time to put it to rest. Again, I am not the least bit interested in arguing these things in this format.

However, if anyone really does feel compelled to save me from the error of my ways then I sincerely invite you to email me personally. I mean that. I am not the least bit afraid of having my beliefs challenged, for I have challenged them plenty myself and continue to do so on a regular basis. My belief is not the result of some intellectual laziness, traditionalism, mental imbalance, emotional instability, mysticism or lack of scholarly investigation. In email I'll gladly share with you my reasoning (based on a logical examination of all evidences, including proven science) for my beliefs.

I don't hold you in contempt - I love your site and a lot of your work - but this whole religious thing is ridiculous. Hard to admit - but maybe in a few years you'll understand. Then again, probably not :)The universe is a much happier and more interesting place without some made-up creator. All you really need to do is understand your mortality instead of fearing it.As for email, feel free to email me at ank2000@yahoo.com.

Wow, reading these comments, you'd swear Keith was cramming his religion down people's throats. I mean, I'm an atheist and all I read was someone expressing their religious beliefs and showing gratitude to their God. Turns out that's what a lot of people of religious faiths do. It's a crazy concept, isn't it? But maybe there is some Christian brainwashing propaganda video playing in the background that I don't have the latest flash plugin for, I don't know. So besides not believing in God, I also don't have any pets, so Keith, if you have any, please don't bring up anything about them in your blog. I would be offended. Kids too, I don't have them, it really would be horrible to read about your kids on your blog too if you have them.

Really though, how did anyone who objects to Keith doing posts about his faith happen to get this far to read the post anyway? I mean he has not 1 but 3 crosses in plain view at the top of his blog.

Lampshademan, can you explain what's inherently bad about outing a delusion for what it is?To put things in perspective, this is exactly like believing that the Earth is the center of the Universe (relativistic interpretations aside)I did not notice the crosses before. Btw, do you think your deity would be happy to see that you use the crucification symbol as holy? I mean, you killed the poor bastard on it... isn't that hypocritical?

Andres, do you not see the inherent danger in assuming people that have different beliefs are stupid, less evolved and a danger to society for having those beliefs? I believe these were the grounds for a lot of religious, racial, political persecution in the past.

I also didn't bring up Keith use of the crosses for you to criticize it or understand how he's hypocritical for using it. However I'm pretty sure as a man of "reason" you like to use facts to make statements, no? Besides blaming an entire group of religious people for the actions of the few religious people that killed Jesus, which is slightly disturbing in an anti-Semitic way, I'm just going to point out that Keith's a Christian. I never thought I'd do this, but I'm going to ask that you check out this book, it's called the Bible, to figure out why that your statement of "...you killed the poor bastard on it..." is false.

Look here's the deal as I'm sure Keith doesn't want two atheists debating whether people should be able to have religious beliefs. I've done my homework, and examined the evidence, and I don't believe in God. Apparently you've reached this conclusion too, Andres. Is it so inconceivable that Keith examined the evidence, did his homework, and with the same mental capacities as us, arrived at the conclusion that there is a God? Why would you want to deny him the ability to figure out how the world works on his own and share his views on that? How does this threaten you? I mean the truth is an unintelligent being wouldn't believe in God, or science, or anything like that. He wouldn't even think about it because he wouldn't need a reason or rational for why his world is the way it is, he'd just accept it.

If you can't see the difference between a random belief and the universe as we have figured out it works so far (as scientifically shown), then I'm not so sure what sort of Atheist you are. In fact, your arguments don't look Atheistic to me at all. You are not concerned with logic, you are worried about "insulting" other people with our discussions. If a person tells me that he believes I'm going to go to hell for eating pork in Shabbat or during Ramadan, who is insulting whom?

Let me explain this for you. There's absolutely nothing wrong in discussing random delusions that people regard as religious beliefs; the only people who want to stop that are the religious bigots who, in the spirit of Galileo's torturers, cannot stand having their base of power and oppression attacked.

As for the bible, I've read it quite a few times - mostly the Old Testicle, since I come from a Jewish background. If you want to try something difficult, try debating a Chassidic Jew. They've been doing it for thousands of years.

Note that it's mostly Protestant Christians that assume Atheists haven't read or are somehow unaware of their lovely book. So I'm going out on a limb here and I'm going to assume you are Protestant, since their entire delusion is based on reprinting their book. It's easier for you to categorize me as an ignorant than to actually respond to my arguments with a modicum of sense. And if you have any intelligence at all, you'll realize that a loving god would never do (for instance) what he did to Job, or let poor old Moses reach Israel. I don't want to start a theological discussion, though. But please, enlighten me - and show me how you handle all the contradictions in your doctrine.

As for the statement, there's something you need to know right now - I have to take it off my chest. I killed Jesus. It was me and my family. We did it because he wouldn't shave or cut his hair. We are not sorry - he deserved to die.

Oh wow, didn't know there was some test for establishing an Atheist other than not believing in God or that I could be a Protestant Atheist. There's a certain kind of irony in that. Seems to me you think that a world with only Atheists in it won't have many of the problems that religions has, namely that people are persecuted for having different beliefs. How exactly is that going to go away if someday people don't believe in God anymore, Andres?

First a healthy debate would consist of establishing why your theory can explain things correctly not why your opponent's doesn't or why his sucks. It's not only insulting, it lacks a certain kind of logic in and of itself. Saying Religion is random is an insult. Regardless of what definition of random you are using, the layman's term or the scientific version which only holds for a specific set of subatomic phenomenon, how does that describe religion? At least my reason for not believing in God isn't that the various religions are random belief systems. Comparing a belief system that millions follow to fairies or Santa Clause which at best children under 7 believe in is an insult. "I killed Jesus...he deserved to die" How's that part of a legitimate debate? Einstein can't claim that Newton was wrong about gravity and leave it at that and expect a Nobel Peace Prize. He's got to show that his theory of gravity is the best way to explain it regardless. This is independent of what Newton's theory of gravity state. He might as well imagine that Newton never even had a theory of gravity, as the incorrectness of that theory doesn't help him prove his own theory. That's a tactic politicians use. The other guy did such and such so if he's unqualified for the position obviously that means I must be qualified for the job.

But I guess the basic problem is Keith never started a discussion on the existence of God. Keith never said you are going to hell for not believing in God or working on Sunday or whatever. I haven't seen any of that from any of the people of religious faith who have posted thus far. But you claim him and others to be less evolved, stupid and a "problem" for believing in God. To me I find that as dangerous as someone who believes I'm a "problem" for not believing in God. I'm not saying you are going to harm religious people or anything like that, I don't know you, but don't you see you are using the same kind of flawed logic you claim some religious people have used against you?

Comparing a belief system that millions follow to fairies or Santa Clause which at best children under 7 believe in is an insult.

And that's a little part of why you are mistaken. How hard you believe in something doesn't make it less or more true; and basing your life, your belief system on something like that, is beyond insane, stupid and un-evolved. Just like believing in Santa, or wanting kids to believe in it. Also, it doesn't matter how many people follow it - false/truth has nothing to do with amount of people who believe in something. Once again, you fail.

But you brought a valid point: kids have enough imagination of their own; only idiots need to lie to kids about a magic Santa or a magic God.

There is NOTHING especially different about Christianity or any other religion in comparison to random beliefs like Santa; if you can't see that, you've been brainwashed by religion, like a whole lot of people.

Einstein can't claim that Newton was wrong about gravity and leave it at that and expect a Nobel Peace Prize.

Are you comparing religious nutcases to Newton?? No, you are definitely not an Atheist. Good try, though.

Also, from now on, you will refer to me as Mr. Kievsky, Almighty Ruler. I will only answer to that magical incantation.

Let me put it another way: how ridiculous a random belief is has nothing to do with the number of people that believe it.

This goes for religion, and for anything else. You can't use the "number of believers" reasoning - it's a fallacy.

Fact: it's up to the proponents (religious people) to show that their gods exist.

Fact: they cannot show it, they have absolutely no evidence.

Conclusion: There are no deities, and thinking that way is totally ridiculous, as shown over and over again.

And ridiculous beliefs in adults are to be mocked and dismissed with a snort - or whatever you do when someone tells you he/she believes to be Napoleon. There is no difference. Why is it so hard for you to see it?

You keep saying I'm not an Atheist? Is there some group or membership dues that I need to pay to become an Atheist? I really didn't get the memo. Is there free food at the meetings?

Well I was using Newton and Einstein as an analogy, which I thought you would understand. It just so happens to be scientific related in a discussion about God and science. That's purely coincidental. What I mean is you can't determine the validity of a theory by criticizing another theory.

It's really up to you to show there isn't a God because you want people of faith to believe as you do. As long as they aren't trying to persuade you to believe in a God, I really don't see why they should have to prove to you that there is a God?

But look man, we could dissect each others comments and find logical fallacies to the cows come home, I'm sure you will rightfully find many in this one. I don't claim to be the master of logic. In any event, I don't think either of us is going to change our stance on this particular issue. Keith gave you an email to discuss things with him. For that matter, if you want to email me, sure I don't care.

Seriously Andres? I told you you could email me. Keith's going to get off of work or whenever he checks his blog and he's going to wonder why he has like 20 new comments.

I'm just going to say this. You appear to see the world as black and white, right or wrong. It appears it frightens and terrifies you to know somebody doesn't share the same exact to the "T" beliefs as you. Does that make you question your own beliefs because somebody, who appears normal just like you, doesn't share your point of view? You have to come up with something to reconcile that, don't you?

You've come to the rational conclusion that there isn't a God, so how could Keith who appears to have 2 eyes and a brain come to the idea that there is a God? Well of course, Keith must be dillusional and not using any logic and reasoning on this particular issue to believe in something as crazy and magical as fairies or Frosty the snowman. That has to be it, right? There just can't be another answer, right?

How can somebody who doesn't believe in God think that people have a fundamental right to make their own interpetation of the world and shouldn't be discriminated for sharing those beliefs? Since you don't think that should be allowed and you are an Atheist then obviously I can't be an atheist then, right. I've got to be pretending to be one. That has to be it, right? There just can't be another answer, right?

I'm not a programmer and I don't know anything about about the programming language, Perl 6. Maybe you are justified in what they have done against you. I haven't read what they think on the issue or their comments to you. However, don't you think it's at the very least interesting that on a 3rd issue, that a group of people who happen think a certain way( ie think Perl 6 is a valid programming language) don't much appreciate your input or edit your comments on their blog? How can anybody as smart as you not see that Perl 6 is no good. The only way to reconcile that they are insincere. They know deep down inside that they "are doing a disservice to what little remains of the Perl community" That has to be it, right? There just can't be another answer, right?

Feel free to go thru my blog if you choose, I'm not trying to make fun of you by reading or pulling quotes from your blog. Just trying to put what you say into perspective to help you man. I guess I did kind of say you could email me if you want or the best route is we should probably just agree to disagree, I don't really have much more to say on the subject matter to convince you and I'll tell you I'm not going to change my stance on the issue regardless of what you say or what books you recommend but the offer still stands. But I'm really not going to respond on comments section here anymore. Sorry Keith for spamming up your blog. I guess it's my fault for starting the conversation over again. I probably should have keep my mouth shut to begin with. Sorry.

Your cheap psychoanalysis is a poor as your grammar, LampshadeMan - and I don't have your email. Dunno where you supposedly left it, but it's not in this comments section.

As for the rest of your comments, yawn. I grow tired of your incessant crying. It's easy to criticise me because I say what I think and it's all out in the open. A lot easier than actually dealing with the facts, which you still haven't replied to. In the end, you are just criticising me for not following your politically correct guidelines.

Let me say it once again: it's up to religious people to show that their explanation of the world is the correct one. That's how science work. Go read The God Delusion, or any other serious books on the matter.

Also, you have made quite a few nasty syntactic mistakes; how can anyone respect your opinions if you can't even string together a few lines without disrespecting your language? Seriously, if you are not smart enough to figure out how to write properly (and I say this as a person whose maternal language is not English,) how can your opinions on more important matters (such as theological delusions) be trusted at all?

Again, you are shocked by my lack of respect about what you consider a respect-worthy behaviour. Let's go through this once again: just because a lot of people think something is one way doesn't mean it can't be challenged; and you are thinking black/white by stubbornly refusing to admit that someone can find religion insulting - surely we can all get along nicely and throw flowers at each other whilst reading the New Testicle, right?

Interesting that you brought the Perl 6 example here, since it's pretty much the same broken groupthink that killed the project: religious dogmatism. As for the rest, you are right: you are not a programmer and you have absolutely no idea what the hell you are talking about. But if you so choose, please, go ahead and study the issue and we'll discuss it.

I have no interest in your blog, but feel free to read and comment in mine, I couldn't care less for a few lost pageviews.

No, I don't respect religion or religious people. And I'm not the only one who doesn't.

Just a small example: I don't respect Muslims. They are stuck in the 12th century, throwing rocks at women who had the audacity of cheating on their husbands. I'm sure that in your mind even these extreme religious nutcases are worthy of respect, right? If not, where do you draw the line? Think about it, ffs.

That's a very offensive view of Muslims Andres.(or I guess not a politically correct viewpoint to you) Let me be clear, I don't approve of any type of Extremists. Not Christian extremist views, not Muslim extremist views, and most importantly to this discussion, not Atheist extremist views. I mean really, you know I have muslim friends who are from the middle east. One time one was 15 minutes late to meeting up with me. I thought nothing of it at the time, but in light of your evidence for why all Muslims shouldn't be respected for their beliefs and are stuck in the 12th century, I should have known he was probably stoning his wife or possibly planning to fly a plane into a building right? That had to be the reason, right, he was Muslim? That's what all Muslims do, right?

And you are really going to critique my grammar, really? You say I haven't explained myself with facts. You want me to explain why I don't believe in God to prove I'm an Atheist, Andres? Oh wait, I'm pretty sure I will make a couple of typos in explaining myself. I guess my viewpoint on why there isn't a God should be trusted at all then, right? I guess since my viewpoint is 100 percent wrong, I guess we can infer from that, God does exist. You got the proof here first, undeniable facts right in front of your eyes, Andres. Report to your local church this Sunday, man. Well that's a wrap everybody can go home.

I generally don't favor organized religion - been there, it wasn't for me. But what really scares me as much as fundamentalist christians, muslims is the intolerance of Andres N. Kievsky and people like you. Noones need to agree with anyone in their beliefs, but as soon as you show a compleate lack of respect for opinions and/or personal beliefs you start to be up there with the worst fundamentalists in religion.

I'd tolerate it as much as I'd tolerate and respect the person that I talked to that stubbornly sustained the belief that mankind has not stepped it's foot on the moon. I try my best to respect people for their opinions and beliefs, and in turn I expect them to respect me for having mine. I do not neccisarly agree with them though.

By the way, are you aware that intolerance will probably only make christians stronger in their beliefs as it is said that people in the end of days will be intolerant to religion. Your intolerance is a sign of the end of days and better things to come.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't have a right to express your opinion. I'd die for that right, just as much as I'd die for the right to belive in whatever you would like to belive in. Just make sure you earn that right by express your opinions in a way that it will not disrespect others. As a paradox I do belive that's the only way we could go on living in multicultural societies in this globalized world without tearing ourselfes to peices.

I start to see discussing with you being pointless as you seem to be stuck with the "religion is a delusion that could be cured going to a shrink" argument. I tried to convey how "they" think.

If you read the bible (which I assume you didn't as you see it as made up gibberish) it says that in the end of days people will be intolerant (2 Peter 3:3 - had to look it up, there are similar passages). Imagine this: If you firmly belive in the bible, how would you react to people like yourself who critizise people by bombarding their belives with arguments that would appear as an insult to the belief?

Another example. How did the bittish people in the big cities react to the daily bombings during the second world war?

One answer, the kept close together firmly confident to not give up by each day.

I'm just trying to explain why its pointless to go on as you do. You might get further with respect for peoples opinions without agreeing with them. You won't agree with all peoples opinions but you might learn something from people that you would have otherwise never had any relation to.

If you all you can do is go on with "all religion is delusion. Go see a psychologist." then you'd most likely be seen as nutty as you see the religious person. And I'd probably agree with you as you'd come off as a very intolerant and disrespectful person not an ounce better than the most fundamentalist religious people.

My own background if it matters:I dont know what I believe in. Big bang and a God seems to be equally valid ways of explaining creation. I do not belive in the Bible, though it contains some good advice on how to get along with people. I grew up with a family that is very strict into their religion but decided to leave that organization when I became 25. We get along fine with mutual respect, except for my sister who I haven't spooken with in years due to this.

I do belive that religion can be good for some people. There's unbiased scientifical research that also proves that - which isn't a sursprise as most persons are somewhat social beings and religion can give some a place. But if one is not comfortable with his or her life in a religion, then there is time for changes.

You're also free to disagree with me. I'm happy at least that we still have this constitutional freedom of choice in many countries.

I know how they think. I know what they do. I know their mob mentality. I know how they get together and make it difficult for the rest of humanity to go about their business. That's religion, and whatever you might think, their effect on the world is extremely negative. It's obvious, from the Catholic Church aiding rapists to Scientology ruining people lives.

A rational view of the universe is required to continue on to the future. We are all imperfect animals, but some of us are slightly more evolved.

God can't be proven, nor can he be disproven. That doesn't mean that he exist, or does exist. This is the whole concept of believing. There's some more or less well worked out arguments on that he would exist. The concept of intelligent design is one of them. Against we have arguments that goes, just because it can't be disproven doesnt mean that it is actually true.

All arguments that are formed on beliefs and can't be proven.

To believe that just "we" are right and a lot of other people are wrong is not stupidity, but vanity. This works both ways. Set aside the vanity and respect people for what they are and judge people on how they act towards their fellow people instead of based on their beliefes and we might come out with a different point of view towards different cultures/customs and most of all people.

Beliefs don't hurt people. If one belive in God or Santa Claus, it doesn't hurt others. If one doesn't belive in God or Teapots in the sky, that doesn't hurt people either. Intolerance fundamentalists or extremists hurt both individuals and societies as a whole because they have no way of seeing beyond their own beliefs. So why not respect a person by his or hers actions and not his or hers believes.

There's an infinite number of things you can believe. Before I can believe in something, I ask for evidence that such a thing is real. If there is no evidence, there's still infinitely many things I can believe, hence, it makes no sense to waste time on that particular one.

To some people like yourself it might seem insane if you're that througfully convinced. I dont know. A god or thinking creating force if you will (whoever created that boggles me the most - where does he come from, something that can't be answered unless it's answered with the sceptical - narcissistic man created god to his own image) seems as plausible as a big bang or a combination of the two. The thing is, as insane it may seem to you, there's a lot of people who watch the world around us and ourselves as being something that must have been created by something intelligent in itself. They call that evidence, and therefore it's not wasted time for them to belive it. What's truly wasted time is discussing who's right as long as we can happily live along with our disagreement. That's all I want to do without stepping on anyones toes about it in the process.

So you think that religion is just a belief on what created the universe? You need to be more cynical. If it was just that, it would be roughly the same as reading a fantasy book.

The problem is that these religious people start making things harder for the rest of humanity, they go to war, they kill, etc - all for something irrational. Do you truly believe we can "live happily together" with such people?

You are conveniently ignoring thousands of years of history of religion.

I do belive that religion in itself is belief on our purpouse on earth and where we come from. I dont mind that. However I dont very much favor organized religion as it can be used with political agendas, and very much so in the past, have been used by (mostly) men in power to achieve private goals or agendas. But that is the same with all people in power. If you get rotten eggs there that manage to get support for their actions, you get bad stuff happening. It's the same with bad politicians.

I might be naive, but if you teach people to mutually respect differencies as long as they dont hurt the guy next to you, you'd get a long way to make people less inclined to go do bad things for someone who think it's a good idea.